Tag Archives: perspective

Theory, fact, and identity

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One of the ironies of science is that when you hold a theory to be true, you can base your factual understanding around that theory.

The Theory of Relativity is just a theory, but we can prove at least part of it because time moves slower for faster moving objects, and if we didn’t scientifically account for this, GPS wouldn’t work because we need to make adjustments for this on satellites. Not all aspects of all theories are that easy to prove, and scientists spend entire careers trying to produce evidence for theories.

Some are true scientists and if they come up with evidence that does not support their theory and understanding of the world, they seek another theory. They abandon the theory that is no longer supported be evidence.

Other pseudoscientists will have every possible reason and justification why the new evidence is wrong. They will defend a broken/falsified theory. They will ignore the concrete evidence and double down on the theory they support.

I can rewrite this entire message starting with,

“One of the ironies of politics is that when you hold a political party’s stance to be true, you can base your factual understanding around that stance.”

…And no matter which party is supported, the bias will lead to pseudo-beliefs. Supporters will ignore the concrete evidence and double down on the stance they support. Except it’s worse, because the theories/stances they support are based on inherent biases rather than facts.

The problem here is that we are in an era where political stance is more influential than scientific theories and facts. Identity matters more than evidence, more than decades of theoretical research, more than facts. And so we have debates that make comparisons of unequal dichotomies.

We have debates between scientists and morons: scientists and flat earthers; scientists and climate change deniers; scientists and religious zealots. And the fact that we have these debates, the fact that we allow these debates to influence our policies, actions, and ultimately our thinking, all make us a little dumber, and a lot more open to influences that we should not waste our time on.

We’d all be better off letting go of identity politics and thinking about the validity of individual arguments. You can be left wing and agree that a country should have safe borders where thoughtful decisions are made about who comes into the country. You can be right wing and agree that women should have rights over their own bodies. You can be moderate and not be ‘othered’ by people on both political wings because of specific stances you hold that are not necessarily moderate.

Identify politics has no place influencing theories and facts. We need to think of politics the way good scientists think about theories: Seek out factual information and be prepared to change our minds if the evidence warrants us to change.

The simple things

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I came across this list recently:

The real luxuries in life:

time

health

a quiet mind

slow mornings

ability to travel

rest without guilt

a good night’s sleep

calm and “boring” days

meaningful conversations

home-cooked meals

people you love

people who love you back

I’m sure you can think of a thing or two to add to the list. There might also be an item on the list you wouldn’t include. The point isn’t to have an exhaustive or perfectly curated list… the point is to appreciate that life’s real luxuries are affordable, available, and attainable.

Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that make it worth living. Not the expensive meal or holiday. Not the elaborately planned event. Simply going for a walk with a friend, having a coffee with someone whose company you enjoy, or a moment of solitude in nature.

The real luxuries are simple, affordable, and life-enriching.

Propaganda machines

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It is fascinating to see Americans on TikTok discuss their experiences on the app RedNote. The main things that they are surprised about are related to learning more about other cultures, (particularly the American and Chinese), and seeing how the ‘others’ live. The Americans are shocked by things like grocery prices and the fact that America is one of the only countries in the world where medical bills can bankrupt you.

I lived in China for 2 years. I saw the way that country has embraced a form of capitalism that is tiered to markets in a way that wouldn’t work in many other parts of the world. While there I could walk into an almost empty, expensive mall where the purchase of one item would pay the salary of the three employees in the store for the entire day. I could then walk out of the mall into an outdoor market where I could buy much cheaper but still good quality knockoffs of the same items in the expensive stores. And then in the back alleys less than a block away are the cheap buyer-beware knockoffs and trinkets where you can get affordable items for any budget, but the quality is very suspect and you need to be savvy about purchases.

But rich or poor, there are places for any Chinese citizen to find items they can afford. And while there is a definite hierarchical class structure, with ‘haves and have-nots’, the vast majority of the have-nots are way better off than a significant number of people here in the Western world that live below the poverty line.

The fascination I have watching these Americans is that they are, in rather large numbers, recognizing that other countries are not the only ones that spit out pro-national propaganda. They are seeing with their own eyes that they are being fed propaganda too… like this TikTok post of woman reading warm new year’s wishes from a Chinese friend she met online.

There are simple kindnesses to foreigners that me and my family received in China that were totally unexpected. For instance, a young couple exiting an elevator so that my family of 4 could fit, or asking for directions and having someone walk two blocks in the opposite direction to make sure we got where we wanted to go. I generally don’t see this kind of thoughtfulness to strangers here in the West.

China is a socialist country with some odd rules, but it’s also one of the most capitalistic countries I’ve ever visited. The people do the best they can within the governing rules of their society, just like most Americans. And people coming together on an app and learning about each others cultures are a way of breaking down propaganda barriers that are put up to villainize or to ‘other’ countries that are seen as economic enemies.

Here is another TikTok where a comment by a Chinese RedNote user is being read aloud, sharing his view of America after spending time getting to know them on the app. I’ve seen dozens of videos similar to the four I’ve shared here. Most of them are from shocked Americans realizing, for the first time, that they have been living under a façade of American exceptionalism.

In short, this Chinese run App is breaking down cultural biases and introducing a more global perspective between two cultures that have been fed miss-and-disinformation about each other. The propaganda machines are falling apart, and world views are becoming a little more worldly.

Fog and clarity

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I have a very short commute to work, 7-8 minutes. My drive there is almost all down hill. On the way, there is a specific hill that allows me to see part of the neighbouring city up on another hill. For the past couple days it has been foggy and that city has looked like it is in the clouds.

I look out at this skyline every work day unless clouds, fog, or rain hinder the view. I mostly don’t pay attention to what I’m seeing, it’s just a background view to my drive. Then something like this fog makes me look again. I notice that it looks like a city in the clouds, and I re-examine the skyline. I appreciate how pretty it is.

This makes me wonder what else I ‘miss’ because of familiarity? What don’t I appreciate enough? What do I not see, despite it being right in front of me?

And no, I’m not just wondering about the view.

Changing your mind

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Should be a reason to celebrate, because new learning occurred.

Should occur at least occasionally, or you probably aren’t growing.

Should be cathartic not embarrassing.

There’s nothing wrong with having strong opinions. There’s nothing wrong with speaking with conviction. But when faced with new, better information it’s ok to change your mind; update your ideas; adjust your perspective.

Let your flexibility, not your stubbornness define your stance. It’s not only ok to admit that you’ve changed your mind… that’s part of being a thinker, a learner, a member of a pluralistic society, a decent human being.

It’s the little things

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Sometimes the path to a big goal gets in the way of the small moments along the way.

Sometimes the scheduled events in your calendar rob you of the time in between meetings.

Sometimes you have to just stop thinking about what’s next, and focus on what’s now… because sometimes the little things you do in a day, with others, are more important than anything coming your way.

Appreciate the little things happening now, don’t let them slip by while looking ahead. Those moments yet to come are not lost yet, but the little things you didn’t pay attention to earlier today… those are gone now.

Unexpected positive interactions

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I had to make a bit of an embarrassing phone call yesterday. I metaphorically dropped the ball. A parent needed permission to get a student signed up for an online course and had tried to contact me a few times. I never got back to her. She had a similar (but not the same) first name as another parent I was dealing with, and her son wanted a similar (but not the same) course as the other parent’s son. I still mixed them up, thought they were asking about the same issue, and only responded to the latter parent. The error was due to a careless error on my part… 100% my fault.

I remember the day last week when I dealt with the other family, then saw a message from my secretary after the fact and thought, ‘Oh, I just dealt with that’, brushing off the message rather than reading it fully.

Considering the first message from this parent was the week before last, maybe even the week before that, she’d been waiting quite a while. When I called at the end of the day today, I was expecting to speak to an upset person. I introduced myself and immediately apologized for my lack of timely communication.

The response I got was a parent happy to have finally reached me, and she immediately explained the situation. As it turns out, this was a situation that was clear cut and actually didn’t even need my approval. I explained how she could register, and gave the name and number of my secretary to connect with if she had any issues. I followed up with an email, and also let all my secretaries know that this person might call for help today, if she had any registration issues.

Yesterday was a long day of back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings that left me with gaps of under 20 minutes of free time to get things done from 8:20am to almost 4pm. I did have a long and enjoyable lunch meeting in there, but that was also a working lunch, and so I couldn’t even look at my growing inbox the whole day.

Seeing the message about this parent and realizing my mistake was something that made me want to crawl under a rock as I sat at my desk at almost 5pm. But I figured this poor parent had waited long enough and I’d just take the complaint hit on the chin before heading home. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a relieved parent who recognized that I was going to help her son get registered for the course he’d been waiting for.

Interactions like this just want me to pay it forward. I’m left wondering how I can engage with someone else in a more positive way? How can I interact with someone in a better way than they were expecting? How can I provide an unexpected positive interaction with someone when that’s not what they’d expect from me?

One world, many universes

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There are a lot of theories about alternate realities. One can imagine entire universes, multiverses, and diverging timelines, different from our own. Undiscoverable worlds where a version of us is subtly or even sublimely different… than us, than our world that we know. But recently I’ve come to realize just how different people’s universes are right here on this earth, in this timeline.

We don’t need a multiverse to grasp completely different realities, they exist here and now. There are groups of people who live so drastically different lives, that despite sharing our current reality, their individual realities are so diverse that you could argue that they live in different universes.

A child born to a single parent in a war torn country today will live a drastically different life than a child born to a rural farm family. Who, in turn, would live in a completely different reality as a kid born to billionaire parents, or a kid born in the slums of a shantytown in an underdeveloped country.

Some people live with religious convictions that dictate many facets of their lives. Others follow science and cannot reconcile with the writings of a holy book. Still others find ways to merge the two and live with a faith that inconsistently matches science, but works for that person trying to make sense of the world.

Some people live with severe disabilities, their view of the world completely different due to limitations in perception, perspective or mobility. Some require medication to survive, while others medicate themselves to escape the world they live in. Whether stuck in or creating their own alternate realities, the lives they live are almost incomparable to our own.

Some people live with financial aspirations that rule how they relate to the world. They sacrifice other priorities in pursuit of wealth. Others make sacrifices for love, for family, for safety, and even for happiness. Each person finding their own motivations, but also stuck in their own worlds of status, health, and geography.

Within a 25 kilometre radius of downtown Vancouver there are people simultaneously living: in a tent, uncertain of when the next meal will be; renting an apartment that is less than ideal and yet too expensive compared to income generated; making significant earnings in a job that provides a comfortable life; living in a world of private jets and luxury restaurants. Each of these people live a life almost incomparable to the rest. What makes their existence similar to each other beyond their proximity on a map? Almost nothing.

We don’t need to live in a multiverse to appreciate that people live in completely different universes, right here, right now. While we experience the same planet, rotating around the same sun, in the same universe, our worlds are so drastically different that they are difficult to compare. We need not leave our one world to see the existence of many universes, each a stark contrast from the other. Each a microcosm unto itself.

Typecast

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I’m watching a Jason Statham movie. Now this is a guy who has been typecasted as a specific kind of hero: The lead actor who will beat people up, shoot them, and either bend the law to his favour or be on the wrong side of the law and yet still be the guy you are rooting for.

Not everyone gets typecast quite as strictly as Jason, but watching this movie got me thinking… How do people typecast me? What do they expect from me? And do I deliver as expected?

I think so. I don’t think I surprise too many people. I’m pretty consistent, and don’t feel I need to be performative. Actors get typecast into roles and have to play those roles. Regular people just are the roles they become. Sure there are bumps along the way, and I certainly did a few uncharacteristic things in my teens and early 20’s, but since then I’ve been pretty much what people expect of me.

That’s not a bad thing. Well for some people it might be. As a simple example, some people are known to always be late, lateness becomes expected. There are more serious things that people might not want to be known for, but there are many, many things that you can be typecast as which are positive.

You can be loyal, kind, fair, reliable, loving, thoughtful, even playful. The question is, if you were an actor, how would you be typecasted? If you don’t like your own response to that question, maybe it’s time to play a new role.

Good pushback

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Yesterday I wrote Winning is Everything and on LinkedIn I got a couple really good comments that (justifiably) pushed back on this idea. Here are the comments and my responses:

Manuel Are:

Thought provoking!

While the mindset of “winning is everything” can drive success and achievement in various contexts, it’s important to balance this with ethical considerations, personal well-being, and long-term sustainability. Sometimes, focusing on personal growth, collaboration, and enjoying the process can lead to more fulfilling outcomes than solely prioritizing winning.

Is this the cultural condition of the times? Is this the societal and cultural pressure that we have now? The standards of the time? The psychological satisfaction?

What about if we teach the future of the value of losing? Of ethical perspectives? Of relationships? Of outcomes?

What if I gained the world but loses my humanity in return?

Dave Truss:

Yes, so true. I work at a school where we show the value of learning through failure. I describe a bit about this here: Educon 17 Conversation

You’ve probably read enough of my blog to know that this is not a typical post for me. I’m very focused on collaboration, teamwork, community, and belonging. This post might seem out of character for me and invited the wonderful counterbalance that you shared…

But I think sometimes we push too much on being ok with just doing our best, and the message of striving, pushing, and thriving from going the extra mile is somehow undervalued or missed.

While collaboration and teamwork are essential life skills, I don’t think we should teach these at the expense of those individualized skills that winning athletes all seem to exude… these too are attributes that help people get what they want out of life.

Mona Haraty:

Doesn’t it serve us all better to believe that everyone can be a winner if they engage more in non-zero-sum games in their lives? It’s easy to lose perspective in zero-sum games like sports.

Dave Truss:

Yes… and no. We do so much in our schools to promote collaboration and teamwork, and we spend a lot more time praising students for what they can do. But how often do we put students into competitive situations where they have to push themselves farther than they think they can go?
We see kids getting ‘A’s all through high school who can’t hack 1st year university because they never understood how to push themselves despite their glowing marks.
This is a bit of a push-back post. Most of my readers will disagree, and I value the time and attention it takes to comment (thank you)… Most of what I do as a school leader is contrary to this philosophy, but I think the pendulum has swung a little too far. We (also) need to praise students who seek individual accolades and who put themselves out there to be the best… while also teaching non-zero-sum games and activities.
Not everyone wins, but most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t… do we teach that at all these days? Do we let students shine far above others who can’t?
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you, but I wonder if sometimes we aren’t crushing the excellence out of high performers?

Mona Haraty:

I agree that we should definitely encourage excellence, and that we are crushing the excellence out of high performers precisely because they are being compared to their classmates using the same tests or challenges. I tell my kids that if the problems they are working on are too easy, they should skip them because there’s no learning in that—there’s no point in getting an A without being challenged.

Once we encourage excellence and take into account the level and growth of each student, grades become even less relevant.

As you said “most who do win know how to push beyond most who don’t” and we can help students build perseverance and resilience by challenging them at their own appropriate level.

I love this kind of professional learning dialogue. This is the kind of conversation that pushes thinking. This is the kind of dialogue I used to see on my Pair-a-Dimes educational blog regularly 10-15 years ago. The pushback is framed positively, and the intent is to shed light… and learning. I don’t see a lot of this on social media anymore. In fact, I seldom even go to comments on other’s writing anymore. For that reason, I truly thank Manuel and Mona for taking the time to question what I said, and to invite further conversation.

When I wrote ‘Winning is Everything’ I fully intended on following up with a post titled, ‘Winning ISN’T Everything’ to counterbalance it with points shared in the comments above. However, to me the better topic is that others beat me to the punch. Their comments and my responses did more to counter balance, to provide pushback on, yesterday’s post than I could have done on my own.

So please, I invite feedback and pushback whenever I say something that doesn’t resonate with you… or simply to ask a clarifying question. And like Manuel and Mona, it can be on a platform besides my blog. While I like blog comments because then the comments are archived with my post, I also appreciate the feedback wherever you are willing to share it.

_____

*UPDATE* – One more comment and response came in on LinkedIn, which is like to add here: 

James Linzel:

I’m glad you describe the importance of collaborative skills. An excellent argument can be formed that winner take all systems dominate our society. Schools are literally designed to rank humans rather than maximize potential. Sports focuses on winning. Politics has become winner take all by leveraging voter blocks. Nationalism is given more importance than humanism.
I’d like to see a 180 from the present competition focused society to a more equity, collaborative, competency based society. I’m not saying eliminate competition, but prevent it from having the pedestal its presently given.
When your original post claimed winning is more important than sportsmanship, then I cannot agree. That position leads to the worst in humanity.

Dave Truss:

Excellent points.
I have competed in sports at a fairly high level. I’m not a natural athlete and had to work my butt off at every level, and was never the best player playing. But I had games and moments where I felt that drive and that competitiveness that pushed me harder than I thought I could go, where winning the game was everything, and the hours of hard practice paid off. That’s not something you can easily achieve in an environment that doesn’t foster competitiveness, and those moments are powerful memories of achievement through hard work… that’s what I was trying to describe in my post.

But in reality, I think your points are extremely relevant. I think people like Andrew Tate and many others including a particular political leader, glorify the idea of selfishness and being first, or being losers. Your point that, “Nationalism is given more importance than humanism,” is so on point, and strikes a counterpoint that I wholeheartedly agree with.
I invite you to see my follow up post: Good pushback

I have now included your comment and this response there as an update.
Thank you for sharing your insights!